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abouttomakeanameformyself · 2 months ago

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Someone New Chapter one: Someone gets hurt

When you go through a breakup, you find yourself drinking your feelings and looking for a place to stay. You stumble into a seedy bar and meet a certain bartender.

Pt 1/10

1/5 🌶️ (references to sex but it's mostly implied)

This is part of a series I will be updating regularly. Tropes include friends to lovers, friends with benefits, roommates, and GrumpyxSunshine. In flirty bartender Remy we trust.

Rejection hung around like smoke in the air as your doc martens thudded down Royal street. The stench and sounds of Bourbon was overestimating to the senses, but that's quarter for you. You've been avoiding the French Quarter since you started at Tulane University five years ago, but most New Orleans natives did. It was loud, crowded, and busy with sad drunk tourists. Given the fact you were sad and mildly buzzed it was actually the perfect hideaway.

The bounds between Decatur, Canal, Esplanade and Rampart were a personal fucky-Bucky free zone. Plus, open container laws. Since you were old enough to drink now, it seemed appropriate that you could drown your sorrows in $15 of watery sugar booze. The hangover was going to be horrific but horrific enough to jump scare you out of your current while also equally horrific predicament.

You have been with your boyfriend James since the end of your sophomore year, when a booze infused hookup became a relationship. You lasted through the rest of undergrad, and into Grad school. Until today. Nothing says happy midterms like walking in on your boyfriend of 3 years being straddled by your best friend.

You passed pissed a long time ago. Right now it was settled into a mix of numbness and shock. The list of things to do was subtly growing.

Move out

Get a better apartment

Get really hot.

Try not to cry in public.

It sucked. The whole situation fucking sucked. It was still better than forgiving Yelena and possibly seeing her fuck James a second time. It wasn't bad enough that she needed your boyfriend, she had to ruin your rent controlled historic apartment in the lower Garden District. Assholes.

It was worth mentioning that Kate would at one point or another need to know that her girlfriend was bopping your boyfriend. Kate was 18 months younger than you and felt like a baby sister. Forget your own relationship, Yelena was gonna hurt pookie. That was unforgivable. You didn't want to tell her, but the whole predicament of the fact that she deserved to know.

The little voice in the back of your head, that sounded an awful lot like James was telling you that you were projecting your feelings on Kate. The other little voice in the back of your head that sounded like your mother told you that you needed to do right regardless of how it relates to you. Both of those voices combined didn't really help you make a decision at all, it was just starting to give you a migraine.

What started as a walk long walk around campus turned into a streetcar ride to mid-city. Or maybe Magazine street. About 3 hours ago that turned into roaming aimlessly through crowds of tourists. People at the Boot on campus could easily put two or two together, or even worse you could run into the ex-boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend rider. It was all too fresh. You needed a fucking drink, and hiding in hand grenades and voodoo daiquiris with the degenerate middle aged tourists was comforting. Their midlife crisis drinking was a blanket over your own crisis drinking.

The Quarter was jam packed. Especially for a Wednesday. The stickiness of the summer evenings have given way to a warm breeze, with the occasional chill. Louisiana never got cold the way it did back in South Dakota. You had the right wardrobe choice for going on a shame stroll around the city. A pair of mom and James's old Net’s shirt was casual and comfortable.

It was one of your favorite articles of clothing actually. It was soft from years of washing, and hung on your frame perfectly. It didn't matter that you didn't know what a Net even was, you loved the shirt. Well fuck him. He's not getting it back. Sure, holding a shirt hostage was kinda petty, but sliding your dick into your girlfriend's best friend was also petty.

The vibrating in your pocket was the tell tale sign that people were worried. Or that shirt man was trying to crawl out of the hole he buried himself in. Which happens to be your friend's hol- that wasn't important. Half of you wanted to throw your phone on the ground and mentally unplug, but the reality of the situation was you were gonna be too drunk to take the streetcar efficiently. You needed your phone to Uber home.

The tourists seemed to be thinning out the further you moved down Royal Street. All the excitement was a block over Bourbon usually, but it was nice from the crowds you witnessed earlier. Less out of towners destroying the historic district with alcohol containers and public indecency. The fewer people around made the Quarter a little bit nicer. Suddenly the tourists made sense. It was pretty when it was quiet.

The galleries and boutique bars separated Royal from Bourbon’s roll of party spots. It was a completely different vibe. While you didn't hold much artistic ability, it was grounding to look at the masterpieces through the windows. There was something so comforting about the way it made you think about something else. It was a quick reprieve from the memory of your boyfriend's face as he was quite literally balls to the wall inside your long term roommate.

Your wandering around the Quarter turned into a lazy stroll, and the sky turned dim. The weight of the day wore you out and all you wanted was a pick me up. You've heard that Erin Rose apparently had an amazing Irish coffee but that seemed like the opposite of where you wanted to be. At this point, you had a shitty margarita from a crap bar on Bourbon. Just enough to be tipsy but that wasn't enough, you needed to hear colors and see sounds.

You were tired, but a familiar aroma brought you back to life with a single sniff.

Now, Tulane taught you a lot in the several years you've been in attendance. The graduate programs at Tulane were coveted spots. Yet, not everything was an academic experience. Your ability to sniff out the perfect espresso martini was not because of education it was more of a passion based skill. It was a life line. The wave of coffee and vodka and serotonin was far more intoxicating than Sir bottom shelf tequila.

The glittering lights of the bar across the street caught your eye. Glowing yellow lights in a cursive script spelled out Lebeau’s. It seemed like a local place, with the smooth lighting and moody exterior. Carefully, one doc in front of the other you stepped in.

The walls were this beautiful authentic exposed brick. The bar was sleek, with smooth jazz playing low in the background. Dark violet accents framed the dreary wood that the majority of the furniture consisted of. It was almost empty, except for one man in the corner of the bar, playing solitaire by himself on one of the cocktail tables by the door. No bartender though.

Your brows furrowed, and you stepped in. The quiet was inviting. Whoever was in charge was probably just giving a run to the storage room or something.

“I would consider another sponsorship, ‘Cher. ‘Pecially around these parts.” A crisp voice broke out in the quaint silence, absolutely ruining the vibes.

When you walked into the bar, you came with the intention of drinking. While you knew you weren't alone, you didn't really care about the card guy. People go to bars to sit alone and decompress, not to bug random civilians. Only weirdos jump into random conversations with no warning. When the smoky Cajun drawl, it took you a solid 30 seconds to realize that you weren't hallucinating.

Your head slowly turned to face the stranger, only this time there was no maneuvering of cards. He was staring at you. Red on black eyes flicking down your frame quickly. Only, it didn't feel like he was checking you out. It felt more analytical than it was pervy, which was comforting. Well, it was comforting in the way that you weren't being objectified but he was still fucking staring at you, which was an issue. “Pardon?”

“Your shirt, Nets. Not popular in these parts. Ya’ from out of town, Chérie? New Jersey? I think the Nets are Jersey.” He was leaning on his elbows, forearms resting against the wooden tabletop.

He had one of those scruffy patches of stubble on his face, that was still clearly facial hair but looked well maintained. Clearly he was aiming for a rugged appearance, and he wasn't far off. He wasn't unattractive actually. He was quite attractive. You couldn't dwell on it much, because the second you had the realization that he wasn't completely unfortunate looking, James's face flashed in your mind.

“First of all buddy, not New Jersey. The Nets are from Brooklyn. Second of all, no, I'm not from New Jersey. Third of all, don't you dare tee-shirt shame me. It's not even my damn shirt. Also, the shirt is not that important, I just want a fucking drink.” You said in response, brows furrowing in frustration. There has to be a bartender at this place, who has a fully stocked empty bar and isn't behind the count-

The stranger smirked as the realization was dawning on you that he was the Bartender. Well fuck me today I guess. He stood from his seat, grinning at your clear embarrassment, the cheeky bastard. He had one of those faces that always looked like he was sort of smirking. Great. Just what you needed! You just snapped at the bartender and he clearly found it funny.

Suddenly a lobotomy seemed more desirable than a martini. When you have that change up maybe professional help should be seeked.

“If you're wearing another man's shirt, I’d say that he has bad taste. Looking at you though, I can tell that's not true. Remy Labeau is a lot of things but he's not a liar.” Oh lovely. Flirty bartender. How horribly fucking cliche. “Now what can get you to drink, Beau?”

At least he was smart enough to offer you a drink.

“Espresso martini. It's my ex's shirt, it just happens to be what I wore today.” You were still standing in the middle of the room. It was silly, but earlier you halted your movements to have a full conversation about your shirt for some reason. With a few steps, you slipped into a seat at the bar.

Exhaustion hits your body like a ton of bricks the second you find yourself in a position of rest. You've been up since about 7, went to bed at 3, had two midterm- god you've been so preoccupied with the fact James Buchanan shit-for-brains Barnes sucked that you completely forgot that you just finished this semester midterms. To look on the bright side at least he had the decency to get caught cheating after your tests. Fucking asshole. You haven't stopped moving since you ran out of your bedroom hours earlier.

“If it's an ex, then he has bad taste if he gave something up that looks as good as you.” Remy replied, his smirk faltering slightly. The statement sounded flirtatious, but something behind his eyes felt disconnected somehow. Okay, so what if a generic hot bartender had layers? Half of the job requirement is being nice to sad drunk people.

Remy carefully slid over that treasured martini, just as you requested. “Personally, I think you'd be a lot kinder to me if you laid off the caffeine ‘Chérie. Ya’ seem jumpy. So, this ex. Is it a new ex? Or?”

It seemed like curiosity. Harmless. The first instinct you had was to go for the throat and tell him it was none of his business. He was just trying to do his job. Make the drunk girl at the bar feel supported so you get a tip yadda yadda. You sighed, tilting your head back and bracing yourself for the information you were about to dump on this poor man. “Actually, very new. About-” You paused to pull your phone out of your pocket for the time, grimacing at the 17 missed calls and the 43 unread messages. “I would say around 8 hours ago. Give or take.”

Remy’s brows rose, as his dark eyes analyzed your face. He clearly didn't believe you. “You broke up with him? Remy thinks that he wouldn't let one like you get away that easily, beau.”

The flattery was kind in theory. It was this poor blue-collar worker's attempt to make you feel better. That is not what happened, of course. It was like the healing bruise was prodded. So instead of actually responding with words, like a normal fucking person, the tears were immediate.

Remy was less prepared for the random tests than you were. The tall, broad man was startled, his eyes widening in shock. His body ducked down, searching for napkins or tissues or something. The random and very ugly crying had the annoying hot bartender in a state of panic. He seemed so smooth up until now, but clearly you caught him off guard. “Fuck m- I didn't mean to make you cry.”

“It's totally fine.” You mumbled through the tears. Your mental stability hit the wall. It was going to happen eventually. Emotional and physical exhaustion was playing at your mental stability. You needed to get a hold of yourself. “It's not your fault. It's not my fault either. I came back from an exam to find him underneath my best friend. In my bed. I'm-”

You trailed off, taking a moment to control your breathing, before deciding to reinsert your foot in your mouth. Not like you'll ever see him again. “It's just very new. I felt like I had this perfect set up, now I'm back at square one. I had this perfect relationship and I loved my apartment. I have put years into a friendship with this person. I lost a rent controlled apartment in the garden district. An affordable apartment in that neighborhood is about as common as a golden fucking unicorn.”

Remy listened to your words, standing back up to his full height. His dark eyes searched your face. His smirk faded into a relaxed expression. The only indicator that he was actually thinking was his eyebrows, which were furrowed together. He looked quite analytical actually.

“That's a lot actually. I'm sorry.” His words were so genuine. The expected move from the hot bartender handbook would be Remy telling you that you were too good for James, or that he didn't know what he was missing. That never came. Just an apology and an acknowledgement that it was hard news. There was no fake pity in his voice. It was honestly incredibly refreshing.

“I know I need to find someplace to stay. The friend was my roommate, and she's on the lease. I'll have to go get my stuff but I'm hoping to go when they are in work or class. It's basically impossible to completely move out without one of them showing up. I guess I'll have to go in shifts or leave some stuff behind.” Your attention shifted back to your ignored martini, and you were thankful for the excuse to silence yourself by bringing the glass to your lips.

“No bébé. You won't.” He said, his intense thought process breaking as easily as a single strand of hair.

He caught you off guard as you dabbed your eye with a drink napkin. “Wh- I'm sorry. What do you mean I won't?”

“You won't be alone to get your things, beautiful. You won't need multiple trips. I'm taking you to get your things in the morning. You're gonna stay with me. My friend Scott just moved into an apartment with his girlfriend Jean. I have an extra room. You're going to be my new roommate.”

#x men the animated series #gambit #remy lebeau x reader #mcu #x men #gambit smut #its been so long #don't bite me I'm rusty #sunshine remy my beloved #the reader is quite literally just a girl #im sorry for the bucky slander he would never

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foreficfandom · 10 months ago

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Alastor - Historical Trivia And Headcanons

Alastor was a mixed-race Creole man living in New Orleans, and was in his 30's/40's when he died in 1933. We don't know much else about him, but historical context can provide us with possible additional details:

The population of New Orleans in 1930 was 458,762, more than it is now. 27.2% of the people were black, 3.1% were foreign-born, and roughly half of America's bipoc population was unemployed thanks to the Great Depression. New Orleans' original Francophonication was still strong, and it was common to run into locals who only spoke French dialects (Cajun French, Louisiana Creole). The city has had a huge Chinatown, a small Little Italy, and multiple other districts known for their immigrant African/colonized French cultures.

The Jim Crow laws were heavily enforced, as was the 'One Drop' rule. If Alastor was a mixed race black man, he would not have been able to attend a white school, use the same public transport, and would have shopped at black-local stores and restaurants under threat of violence. If he was mixed with any other race, some Jim Crow laws didn't apply, but state or city laws might specify differently.

Just because Alastor wears a suit, it doesn't mean he was rich in life. Radio personalities often didn't earn a fortune. Unless he owned his own broadcast, he was paid by a private company for long shifts of hosting music, news, and radio plays. In 1930, 40% of households owned at least one radio, which means that a popular radio host would have been easily recognized.

If he was in his late 30's in 1933, he might have fought in WW1, so long as he was over the age of 21. Some cities gave veterans small benefits, or encouraged the community to give them jobs. This often did not include veterans of color.

New Orleans was famous for being one of the least Christian cities in America, thanks to its unique immigrant and slave population. Haitian-based faiths and practices (such as voudo), indigenous cultures, Asian Buddhism, and atheism were common. But Christianity was still the official, law-enforced religion. Schooling involved reading the Bible, laws were sworn to Jesus, etc.

Alastor's outfit in Hazbin Hotel isn't very accurate to real-life American men's fashions of the time. Back then, deviating from the norm with the smallest detail would have stuck out like a sore thumb - like his white-lined lapels. Men always wore a hat. They were allowed to go without a waistcoat, but not a jacket. Belts were becoming more popular than suspenders. The silhouette was bulkier than the slimmer, Italian cuts of our modern times, especially the pants. Hair was kept short, and oiled down in a side part. Americans preferred the clean shaven look. Ties were essential unless you were a blue-collar laborer. Colors were almost universally muted neutral tones for everyday wear. The most colorful textiles for men were sporting outfits, like a tennis jacket.

If Alastor was a middle-class single man, he likely would have lived in an inner-city apartment, in an ethnic neighborhood. He probably didn't own a car, and took public transit like the streetcars. If he owned a house, it would likely have been an inheritance, and even the more opulent houses of the time would have looked small and plain to our eyes.

Because of the Great Depression, unmarried men were becoming the norm, rather than the exception. Men of the community who were sought after but remained single were suspect to gossip, but less ire than you might think; in the '30s, American queer culture was going through a very sharp revival, escaping the rigid Victorian era and before the puritan 40's/50's. But as a mixed-race man, it may have been illegal for a white woman to marry him, as the Jim Crow laws forbade the marriage of white people and Black/Asian people.

A middle class city household would have had electricity, gas heating, indoor plumbing, but may not have had running taps or a gas stove. Even with decent means, Alastor might have been using a potbelly woodburning stove, a dry sink/washbasin, wooden bathtub, and did his own laundry instead of sending it to the neighborhood laundresses. He may or may not have bothered with an icebox. Fresh groceries needed to be cooked and eaten soon, as things like pasteurized milk or store refrigeration wasn't a thing.

If he had enough money, then he almost certainly hired maids or other servants. Whether the maid came over just once a week, or did the shopping and laundry every other day, hired help was much more common back then, especially if he had no wife.

The most popular musicians in 1933 were Bing Crosby, George Olsen, and Leo Reisman. As you might have noticed, it was trendy for the lead singer to be backed by an orchestra, not a 'band' of just four other people like today. The most popular radio shows were Dick Tracy, Sherlock Holmes, and Doc Savage. They were recordings the radio station would buy and then broadcast, or sometimes the actors were live on the air. The radio host was usually not the journalist - the production team was responsible for writing his script.

#alastor #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #alastor headcanons #hazbin hotel headcanon

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wordcubed · 11 months ago

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🔥

America could rapidly transform its cities into urban paradises if it simultaneously (a) privatized every street (b) required that commute time be counted and paid as if it was time spent working.

Everybody forgets that the much-ballyhooed trams/streetcars in America were privately owned and operated. But historically, most streetcar operators had signed contracts with cities to cover street maintenance costs, so when cars became popular, suddenly streetcar companies found themselves paying for the massive amount of wear and tear that cars cause to the road—effectively, subsidizing their own competition.

I say: bring that back! Privatize the roads and give them total freedom with the requirement that the owner pay all maintenance costs on a regular basis. They'd quickly figure out that lowering maintenance costs (banning cars) while still increasing usage (encouraging dense, efficient transit like streetcars) would be the way to go.

Couple that with requiring businesses to pay workers for their commute times, and most businesses would start putting immense pressure on other institutions to shorten commutes... encouraging dense, urban living.

There, I just pissed off both the Marxists and the capitalists following me. This is the perfect post because I get to be right and everybody else gets to be unhappy.

#Half joking with this btw #transit #cars #urbanism #answered asks #ask memes #actual blog post #OPs

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trainsinanime · 1 year ago

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LIMAX

I’m tired, I’m bored, let’s talk about the RE18, also sometimes known as LiMAX or Drielandentrein (three countries train).

Euregio

This international regional train connects the region known as Euregio Maas-Rhine, the area around the point where Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet. The region has a long shared and sometimes weird history. The main cities are Aachen (Germany, about 260,000 inhabitants), Liège (Belgium, about 200,000 people) and Maastricht (Netherlands, about 120,000 folks). A cluster of smaller towns around Heerlen (Netherlands, 86,000 citizens) forms a fourth major pole. Each of the regions gets roughly around half a million inhabitants each, but with a lot of green space in between. Here's a very crude map:

Blue are borders, black are relevant passenger rail lines, red is the one high speed line I'll talk about later.

This region is either right in the centre of Europe, or at the periphery of each of its respective countries, depending on what aspect you look at. Centre of Europe is undeniably better, but it requires international cooperation to work out. For me, living in Aachen, it’s great. My nearest Ikea is in the Netherlands, and I can watch French movies in cinemas in Liège.

But a lot of things aren't perfect, and the regional rail connections are a good example. Differing ticketing systems mean that it's not only expensive to cross the border, it's often very difficult to figure out what it costs at all. In a lot of places, trains only did short hops over the border, and then you had to change to a different train to get anywhere interesting. Some lines weren't even electrified yet. But in 2018, that was all about to change.

LIMAX

The Liège-Maastricht-Aachen express, in short LIMAX, was meant to change all that. The train is officially known as RE 18, which comes from the numbering scheme in the German state of Northrhine-Westphalia but is used for the entire route. It was supposed to run from Liège via Maastricht and Heerlen to Aachen, connecting all the major cities of the Euregio.

This particular train is a dutch project, and connecting Aachen with Liège only happens incidentally. There is a direct Aachen-Liège railway line, actually the oldest international line that’s still in use, including the oldest surviving German railway tunnel, and there is even a high-speed line that bypasses around 90% of the historic line. You can get from Aachen to Liège in less than half an hour on high speed trains (though regional trains are weird and impractical at the moment). This train line is really more about getting people in Heerlen a direct link to Liège, and people in Maastricht a direct link to Aachen.

The train

The train is operated by Arriva Netherlands Limburg, an independent subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, who also operate all other rail and bus lines in the southern half of the dutch province of Limburg. They were actually placed second in the tender for this, but got promoted after it turned out that the actual winner Abellio (a daughter of the dutch state railroads NS) had illegal access to internal documents of previous operator and third-place scorer Veolia from France. To their credit, this came out because Abellio management learned of it and made it public, but rules are rules, so they still got disqualified. This is barely in the top three most interesting stories with Abellio, but we don’t have time for that here.

The service uses Stadler FLIRT 3 electric multiple units. FLIRT is an abbreviation, but nobody bothers remembering what it stands for. The manufacturer also offers or used to offer the TANGO (streetcar), the WINK (smaller version of the FLIRT), KISS (double-decker) and their newest high-speed train, the… SMILE. Cowards.

The FLIRTs for this service are specially equipped for the line, supporting all the different voltages in the overhead lines and all the other necessary support systems… almost. That’s going to become important later.

(Arriva Nederland Limburgs also has other trains, including other FLIRTs, that are only equipped for the Netherlands. I'll ignore them here.)

Services started in December 2018, theoretically. In practice the German leg of the service didn’t work yet. The problem was that the line from Heerlen to Herzogenrath (and then further to Aachen) used to be one of the few non-electrified lines in the region. It was electrified specifically for the RE18, and the work wasn’t quite finished yet. That got resolved, though, and the train is now working mostly well between Germany and the Netherlands. There are still some issues, like how it consistently announces that the doors will open on the left when they will open on the right and vice versa, but those are minor issues. The main problem for me is that it bypasses the Ikea station instead of stopping there.

The much bigger problem was the Belgian line, from (south of) Maastricht to Liège. The Belgian railway authorities were never that enthusiastic about the project to begin with, seeing how it was a private dutch company (though owned by the German government), and the platforms in the intermediate station of Visé were too low for step-free access and needed to be rebuilt. But the real main issue lay elsewhere: The new trains did not have ETCS.

Train control systems

We need a detour here about train control systems. Trains are controlled by signals. If a train passes a red signal, an accident usually follows, so over time every country developed different systems to make sure that doesn’t happen. The specific features of these vary widely. Some just warn the engineer that a red signal is ahead, and stop the train if the engineer doesn’t react. Some activate the emergency brake when the engineer passes a red signal, or when they don’t brake enough. More advanced ones for high speed lines tell the engineer the current allowed speed, upcoming speed changes and how far away they are, like a mini-GPS system, and constantly check that the engineer is driving within these limits. Many systems do a combination of different things.

Almost every country has its own of these systems, generally known by a cryptic abbrevation, and many countries have several. For example, Germany has PZB for all lines and additionally LZB for high-speed lines. The Netherlands have different versions of ATB, Belgium has TBL1+ and so on. The differences between them aren’t relevant for this post, but they’re all very different in what they do and how they do it. The RE 18 trains support all of them, except LZB because they’re not used on lines that make it necessary.

That’s expensive and annoying, so the European Union and European rail industries have developed a new system to replace all of them, the European Train Control System or ETCS. You will also hear the term ERTMS (European rail traffic management system), which includes ETCS and some other things, but in common parlance it usually means the same thing. Despite the name, it is also heavily used outside of Europe, e.g. on China’s high speed rail network.

And yes, that is very much a situation like the classic XKCD comic:

Source: XKCD 927, CC-BY-NC 2.5

(For americans reading this and wondering about PTC: That is a whole mess and almost everyone, including Wikipedia, explains it wrong, but for the purposes of this post we can just say that these systems and in particular ETCS are all something „like“ PTC.)

ETCS will only make sense once all European mainlines are equipped with it, which is still several decades away. But some countries are working harder than others to implement it. In particular, Belgium demands that all new trains since about 2015 have ETCS. Including the Stadler FLIRT for the RE 18.

In this case

The operator protested, because that requirement apparently came in while the trains were in production, and the line in question didn’t even have ETCS at the time (according to the latest Belgian maps it does now). To this day, the trains actually running there, as a Liège-Maastricht shuttle, do not have ETCS. So clearly it's not that essential… yet. Still, Belgian authorities refused to budge, so the trains had to be sent back to the manufacturer to get ETCS installed.

(Aside: ETCS is an open standard, and you can get ETCS equipment both for the tracks and for the trains from many different companies. Stadler, the manufacturer of these trains, only recently got into making ETCS equipment. Before that they had to buy it from competing train makers. These trains are among the first equipped with Stadler’s ETCS solution.)

The first train got it installed, returned to the line, and started tests. It worked well in the Netherlands, it worked well in Germany, it ran into Aachen station and worked well there, it ran back out of Aachen station and it stopped. Full emergency stop. After some testing it was determined that it always does an emergency stop when running out of Aachen station. And nobody is really sure why.

The low-down

We can make some vague guesses, though, because Aachen main station does have some ETCS equipment.

ETCS works partially with radio, but also with what are functionally giant RFID tags, the same basic concept like what you’ll find on a wireless credit card. They’re working at different frequencies and they’re designed for reliable reading at 450 km/h, but the basic idea is pretty much the same. These tags, known as „Balise“ (French for beacon) or Eurobalise, are mounted in the middle of the track, and are often yellow, at least when new. They can either send the same data every time, or be controlled with a cable from a computer.

Not everybody loves ETCS, but everybody seems to like the Eurobalise. It’s simple technology that can transmit a lot of information, and so there are a number of non-ETCS uses for it.

One such use case is transmitting the information of an older train control system. That is what the Belgians do with their TBL1+ system. It’s the same system as TBL1 (there is also a TBL2, but that was a bad idea and is gone now), but it transmits its information with Eurobalises. The idea is that you update these balises later to also transmit ETCS signals. Older trains can just get a balise reader, newer trains can just get ETCS, and you have only a single type of thing in the track instead of two. Switzerland is the first country that is fully ETCS equipped thanks to such a strategy, and Belgium is following suit.

The other use case is the "ETCS-based class B transition". Sounds tough but really isn’t: ETCS has a mechanism to tell the train, "hey, ETCS is ending, switch to ATB/PZB/TBL/…". In this context "Class B" means any system that isn’t ETCS (and that is on the list of things that ETCS knows about, for this purpose). The system ensures that the train really does switch to the other system, and that it stops if the switch doesn’t work. That is very useful and so most border crossings at least in Germany use it these days, even if no other part of ETCS is seen anywhere.

Both of these use cases are well established and ETCS specifically allows for them. Aachen central station is particularly fun because here you will find both of them combined. It is the border station for (passenger) trains to Belgium, so several tracks can be switched to Belgium mode, with Belgian electricity, and with Belgian TBL1+ train control system. The Eurobalises in these tracks pull double duty: They tell trains whether to switch to Belgian or German train control systems, depending on where the route is set, and if the Belgian system is to be used, they also transmit the information from that.

This isn’t new, and has worked well for years. The only other two types of passenger trains approved for the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany (and in one case also France), the Thalys PBKA and the ICE 3M high speed trains, also run through this station and they also have ETCS equipment and it all works.

But something about the combination together with the ETCS equipment in the new trains just doesn’t mesh well. It’s possible that there’s a bug in the software of the train. It’s possible that there’s a bug in the coding of the balises. Maybe it's something else; ETCS is a complex standard with a lot of updates, and the equipment in Aachen hasn't been touched in a while.

A theory I read on a dutch forum said that these balises tell the train to switch to combined PZB+LZB mode, but the train only has PZB mode and gets confused. I don’t know enough about ETCS to know whether this is plausible (and I know way too much about this stupid system already). All we really know for sure is that there are people working on this, and they're not telling us any of the details.

But after a few days where the train just didn’t run to Aachen at all, they found a solution. You know how I said that some tracks can be switched to Belgium mode? The others can’t, so why not just run the train into those?

That was actually easier said than done. Aachen has a lot of tracks, but most of them are used for parking trains. Most German regional trains to Aachen end in Aachen, and then wait here for half an hour or so until they return to where they came from. This isn’t required by the track layout or anything, it’s just convenient because that way, delays don’t build up quite as much. And the best location for that pause is, of course, right at the edge of the country. Centre of Europe? Yeah, sure, whatever…

So the solution is now that the RE18 runs into track 3 and stops in the middle of the platform, where it unloads all passengers. Then it drives forward to the end of the platform, and stays there. Another train, the RB33, pulls in behind it (there’s a red signal between them, don’t worry), and waits for its time to depart. Eventually it does, and shortly thereafter, the RE18 runs back to the middle of the platform, and then a few minutes later, back out again. It’s a silly little dance, but so far nobody has found a better solution.

(Before you start, the end of platform 3 is very narrow and at a non-accessible height, so the train can't just load and unload there.)

As for the Belgian side of things, through-services to Liège will start this December! Woohoo! It seems this thing is finally working.

The Future

The long-term hope is to turn this from an hourly to a half-hourly service. It already is for most of its length, but right now the trains stop in Herzogenrath, just after the German border, because there is no space in the schedule to run them to Aachen yet.

Another hope is to create a completely new service from Aachen to Eindhoven, also using the same trains. Eindhoven wants to be connected to the German ICE network, Aachen wants to be connected to the dutch train network, so this sounds all great. Personally, I have doubt that these trains have enough capacity, but they are currently the only ones that would work. An issue with that is the actual line over the border. This used to be double-tracked, then got single-tracked. Now they want to double-track it again, but when it was electrified, they put the power poles right where the second track used to be. Not sure what they were thinking there.

All of these projects will take years, if not decades, and have in fact already taken years or decades. I’ve been in Aachen since 2007, and things like electrifying the line over the german-dutch border or creating a direct train from Aachen to the center of the Netherlands (or at least Eindhoven) have been in discussion for at least since then. On the one hand, it’s frustrating how slowly all these things are going. On the other, they are happening at all, and looking back ten years or so, it’s quite nice to see what has been accomplished.

I guess my one wish is that they’d finally let the train stop in Heerlen Woonboulevard, I’m tired of changing trains to get to Ikea.

#trains #railroads #aachen #maastricht #liege #arriva #etcs #stadler #guardia #flirt

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sfmuniphotos · 4 months ago

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One of San Francisco’s historic F-line streetcars at night.

#muni #f market #streetcar #streetcar 1063

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aliveandfullofjoy · 2 years ago

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95th Academy Awards: Oscars Trivia!

Another torturously long awards season is over! A24's highest-grossing film ever, Everything Everywhere All at Once, defied almost every piece of popular wisdom about the Academy Awards and easily cleared every hurdle in its path to a blowout, historic Best Picture win.

As you probably know, I'm a sucker for Oscar trivia, and this year has plenty of juicy nuggets to dig into. Let's get to it, starting with our newest Best Picture winner.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the third film in Oscar history to win three of the four acting categories, after A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Network (1976). All three films won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Everything Everywhere All at Once is the only film of the three that managed to win Best Picture.

Michelle Yeoh is the first Malaysian actress, first Asian actress, and second woman of color to win Best Actress. This is only the thirteenth time that Best Actress and Best Picture have overlapped in the 95-year history of the Oscars. Yeoh's nomination made her the first Asian actress nominated for the award since 1935. The only other is Merle Oberon, who hid her Asian identity in life and passed as white.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first science-fiction film to win Best Picture.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first Best Picture winner with a woman of color (Michelle Yeoh) in the lead role.

Having opened in theaters in late March 2022 (the same weekend of the 94th Academy Awards), Everything Everywhere All at Once is the Best Picture winner with the earliest calendar release since The Silence of the Lambs, which opened Valentine's Day 1991.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the third Best Picture winner with a majority non-white cast (after 2016's Moonlight and 2019's Parasite) and the first American film with a majority Asian cast.

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once) are the third directing team to win Best Director, joining Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise (West Side Story, 1961) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, 2007). Kwan is also the fourth Asian director (and first Asian-American) to win Best Director.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first movie in 95 years of Oscars history to win six(!) so-called "above the line" awards -- referring to Best Picture, Director, the four acting categories, and the two writing categories.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first film to sweep the four primary guild awards (Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Writers Guild, and Screen Actors Guild) since Argo (2012), and only the fifth overall.

Some crazy coincidences between Michelle Yeoh and her Best Actress presenter Halle Berry: in addition to currently being the only two women of color to win Best Actress, they are also both former Bond girls (Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies [1997], Berry in Die Another Day [2002], both with Pierce Brosnan). Additionally, both women are former contestants of the Miss World pageant: Berry represented the United States in 1986, while Yeoh represented Malaysia in 1983. Also, in a weird case of history rhyming, both Berry and Yeoh won over a previous Oscar-winner in a film directed by Todd Field (Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom in 2001, Cate Blanchett in TÁR in 2022).

With four wins, All Quiet on the Western Front tied with Parasite (2019), Roma (2018), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and Fanny and Alexander (1982) as the most-rewarded non-English language films in Oscars history.

This is also the second time that Cate Blanchett has won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Critics Choice Award for a performance, only to lose the Oscar to the lead of the Best Picture winner. The other time this happened was the year another comedy won seven Oscars: Shakespeare in Love. Blanchett, who was nominated for Elizabeth that year, lost to Gwyneth Paltrow.

TÁR brought Blanchett her eighth Oscar nomination, tying her as the fourth most-nominated actress in Oscar history. Only Bette Davis (10), Katharine Hepburn (12), and Meryl Streep (21) are ahead of her.

TÁR is only director Todd Field's third feature (after 2001's In the Bedroom and 2006's Little Children), but all three of his films have gotten Best Actress nominations for their leads.

Blanchett has also extended her record as the Oscar-nominated actress with the most appearances in films nominated for Best Picture. With TÁR, she has now appeared in 10 Best Picture nominees.

Tom Hanks (who turned in one of the weirdest performances ever caught on film in Elvis) also crossed the 10 Best Picture appearance threshold with this year's nominations. The only nominated actor with more Best Picture appearances is Jack Nicholson, who's been in 11.

This year's nominations saw a record-breaking number of Asian actors nominated: Yeoh in Best Actress, Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once) in Best Supporting Actor, and Hong Chau (The Whale) and Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) in Best Supporting Actress. Yeoh and Quan won, marking the first time multiple Asian actors have won in a single ceremony.

Hong Chau (The Whale) is the first Oscar-nominated actor to be born in a refugee camp.

This year also saw a record number of Irish actors nominated in a single year, with five: Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun) in Best Actor, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan (both from The Banshees of Inisherin) in Best Supporting Actor, and Kerry Condon (again, The Banshees of Inisherin) in Best Supporting Actress.

It was a banner year for Ireland in other categories, too, with nominations in Best Live Action Short (An Irish Goodbye, which won the award) and in Best International Feature (The Quiet Girl, the first Irish-language film ever nominated for an Oscar).

With his win in the Supporting Actor category, Quan became only the second Asian actor to win that award, joining the late Haing S. Ngor, who won for his debut performance in The Killing Fields (1984).

All five of the nominees for Best Actor -- Austin Butler (Elvis), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), and Bill Nighy (Living) -- were first-time nominees. This is the first time this has happened in this category since 1934(!!!).

It was a huge year for first-time nominees across all four acting categories: 16(!) of the 20 actors nominated were first-timers. This is the most ever in a single year. The only actors with previous nominations were Cate Blanchett, Angela Bassett, Judd Hirsch, and Michelle Williams.

Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once) is the third person to be nominated for an Oscar after both of her parents were nominated as well: her father Tony Curtis was nominated for The Defiant Ones (1958), while her mother Janet Leigh was nominated for Psycho (1960). The other sets of nominated parents and children are Liza Minnelli (with parents Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli) and Laura Dern (with parents Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern). Minnelli, Dern, and Curtis all won acting Oscars.

With his performance in The Whale, Brendan Fraser became the first person to win Best Actor for a film not nominated for Best Picture since Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart (2009).

This is also the first time since 2005 that all four acting winners were first-time nominees. Additionally, none of the four acting winners won in their category at the BAFTAs, which has never happened before.

With his Best Supporting Actor nomination, Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans) broke the record for the longest gap between acting nominations: he was last nominated 42 years ago for Ordinary People (1980). The record previously belonged to Henry Fonda, who had a 41-year gap between nods.

In addition to being the first actor ever nominated for a performance in a Marvel movie, Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) also became the fourth Black actress to be nominated more than once. She joined Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, and Octavia Spencer.

The Fabelmans is the first movie to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama to go home emptyhanded at the Oscars since The Turning Point (1977[!]). In fact, this is the first time ever that both Golden Globe Best Picture winners (The Fabelmans in Drama, The Banshees of Inisherin in Comedy) went home with zero Oscars.

2022 had some other similarities with 1977, too: this was the first year since 1977 that two films (Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Banshees of Inisherin in 2022, Julia and The Turning Point in 1977) got four individual acting nominations. Both years saw comedies win Best Picture and Best Actress (Annie Hall in 1977), and both years had a sci-fi blockbuster nominated in Best Picture (Star Wars and Avatar: The Way of Water).

Ana de Armas (Blonde) became the second actor nominated for playing Marilyn Monroe, which is more Oscars than Monroe herself was ever nominated for. She was nominated in Best Actress alongside Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), the other actress nominated for playing the star (in 2011's My Week with Marilyn).

De Armas also became the fifth Latina nominated for Best Actress, joining Fernanda Montenegro, Salma Hayek, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Yalitza Aparicio. She is also the second Cuban actor ever nominated, after Andy Garcia.

With her win for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, legendary costume designer Ruth Carter became the first Black woman to win two Oscars — ever.

Only Austin Butler and Ana de Armas were nominated for playing historical figures this year. Weirdly, both Elvis and Blonde feature actor Xavier Samuel in small roles. What does it mean?

At 34 minutes long, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is the longest Best Animated Short winner ever.

In addition to being the first song from an Indian film to be nominated for and win the Oscar for Best Song, "Naatu Naatu" (RRR) is the fourth non-English language winner of that award, after "Never on Sunday" (1960, originally performed in Greek), "Al otro lado del río" (2004, in Spanish), and "Jai Ho" (2008, in Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi). "Naatu Naatu" is in Telugu.

It was the year of the sequel: between Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick, this marked the first time multiple sequels were nominated in Best Picture in the same year. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery also received major nominations.

Avatar and Top Gun also marked the first time since 1982 that the two highest-grossing films of the year were both nominated for Best Picture.

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